SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (January 16, 2025) – Washington State women's basketball came out firing Thursday night as the team led wire-to-wire in their 74-58 rout of San Francisco.

The Cougars (11-8, 6-2 WCC) nailed nine threes in the first half and finished the game shooting 31.3 percent from deep and 45.5 percent from the floor.

Jenna Villa matched a career-high with four made threes, all coming in the first half to finish with 14 points, three rebounds and two assists.

Tara Wallack led the team with 16 points and nine rebounds, and also had two blocks, two steals and three assists.

Astera Tuhina led with seven assists to match a season-high and four steals, while Alex Covill had a team-best four blocks to go with eight points and four boards.

Eleonora Villa ended the night with 10 points, three assists, three rebounds and a steal.

Dayana Mendes had eight points, four rebounds, a block, a steal and two assists.

Kyra Gardner tallied seven points and a steal, and Candace Kpetikou ended with six points.

Jenna Villa opened the scoring with a pair of threes before layups from Wallack and Eleonora Villa put the Cougars ahead 10-1 midway through the first. Wallack connected on a couple of threes to stretch the lead to 16-3 and then buckets from Mendes and Kpetikou in the final minutes of the first gave WSU a 25-8 lead after one quarter of play.

Kyra Gardner started the second quarter with a quick three to extend Wazzu to a 20-point lead, 28-8. The Cougs kept pulling away as a Mendes three and a couple of Covill layups made it 37-10 before two more Jenna Villa treys sent WSU to the locker room with a 45-21 lead.

Out of the break, a trio of layups from Eleonora Villa and a Tuhina three put the lead back at 25, 54-29. However, the Dons would then use a 12-6 run to cut into the Cougar lead to 60-41 as the game entered its final quarter.

Despite layups from Wallack and Covill early in the fourth, USF continued to chip away and drew to within 15 of the Cougars, 64-49 with 4:59 to play. That would be as close as they would get, though, as buckets from Kpetikou, Gardner and Alsina down the stretch closed out the 74-58 win.

RECORD BOOK CLIMBERS AND MILESTONE CHASERS  

• Tara Wallack's 16 points put her at 1,101 for her career, ranking 19th in program history. 
• Wallack's two blocks put her at 139 career blocks, fifth all-time at WSU. 
• With 34 minutes tonight, Wallack has played 3,476 career minutes, sixth all-time at WSU. 
• Wallack is also 484 minutes away from matching the most in program history. 
• Tonight's start was the 99th of Wallack's career, one away from 100. 
• Alex Covill's four blocks today has her at 95 career blocks, moving into 10th all-time at WSU.
• Coach Ethridge now has 189 career wins as a head coach, 11 from 200.

NOTES

• WSU eclipsed 7+ blocks for the 11th time this season and is 7-4 in those games.
• The team improves to 7-0 when leading at halftime, and to 4-0 in WCC road games.
• The Cougs improve to 10-2 all-time against San Francisco.
  • Tonight's game marked the 12th all-time meeting and the first meeting since Nov. 11, 2022.
  • After losing their first two matchups in 1981 and 1983, the Cougars have now won 10 straight against USF, including five straight in San Francisco.

UP NEXT
The Cougs stay in the bay to play at Santa Clara on Saturday, January 18 at 2 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
   
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